Who is Siriana Abboud? Manhattan kindergarten teacher accused of spreading anti-Israel propaganda to city's youngest students
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: A Manhattan kindergarten teacher is accused of spreading anti-Israel propaganda to the city's youngest students and offering parents and teachers tips on how to speak to their children about the Palestinian “struggle against colonization.”
Siriana Abboud, 29, a city Department of Education teacher at PS 59 in Midtown, also offers guides through social media on how to talk to 4-year-olds about “land theft, displacement and ethnic cleansing.”
Abboud also reportedly motivates parents to take them to pro-Palestinian protests, while terming Israel as a “fascist ethnostate” in her Instagram stories, even after the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants.
What do Abboud's teachings include?
Abboud’s exclusive “teach-ins” for educators and activists cover Palestine and Zionism. She promoted online that “teaching can never be radical or revolutionary, so long as you deny the ongoing and violent colonization of Palestine by Zionism” and that early education can be a “tool for liberation.”
“Justice-informed teaching means breaking down power imbalances I’ve been given as a classroom teacher,” she has said, and that “we aren’t teaching the truth if we’re silent on Palestine.”
Abboud's Instagram posts speak about 'genocide' in Gaza
Abboud’s Instagram page includes posts about the “genocidal state of Israel” and recommended resources, including a “shout-out” to the website Decolonize Palestine, which is described as an independent, autonomous project founded by two people in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
It celebrated the anniversary of the first violent “intifada” riot in 1987 in a post and said it is “fondly remembered.”
“There already is a wall in Palestine that hurts Palestinians,” a post “pinned” to the top of the teacher’s Instagram page says.
“This is exactly the anti-Jewish culture that people are seeing throughout the DOE,” said one employee who works closely with Abboud, who was “shocked” to see the breadth of vitriol on her colleague’s page.
“This person is molding young children’s minds and really indoctrinating children from a preschool age.”
Abboud also runs an online business
Abboud also reportedly runs an online business named Allusio Academy, which provides at-home curriculums for kids and consultations, webinars, and workshops for parents and teachers.
Live classes go for $55, personalized daily schedules for $45, and consultation packets with resources and strategies are billed at $75.
Her book recommendations include 'The Arabic Quilt' by Aya Khalil and 'P Is for Palestine' by Golbarg Bashi.
Abboud wrote that it was a “brutal history of rape that was used to establish the state of Israel," in a 2021 post on Allusio Academy’s Facebook page.
She also argues on the page that Palestine is a “children’s issue” and not too political to teach to preschoolers.
Jewish parents are left worried by the messages they see on her social media
“Her account is full of hate,” one mother who recently transferred her child to PS 59 commented in a parents group. “I am scared of sending my kid there.”
“She perpetuates a distorted narrative that blames Israel and ‘Zionism’ — the right of Jews to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, for atrocities that Palestinians may perpetuate against Israelis,” antisemitic watchdog group Canary Mission told New York Post.
